A scene from Second Life: it's virtual, but at least it's not trying to pretend it's tied to our real world

Every so often a story pops up in the national press about a company or person selling plots of land on the moon (here's one from 2006). Or, sometimes, on Mars. I've written about it enough times that it's wearily familiar: the people involved say that they've got a perfect right to sell the land, which is true enough if you can find someone stup... eager enough to buy it. Sometimes it's "buying" stars and naming them, which is the sort of thing that's not going to sit well in astronomers' tables - which is why astronomers ignore them. (And who knows what astrologers feel about them?)

I realised today, when the PR on behalf of a company called zubworld got in touch, that it's this "let's make money from something that's not got any implicit or explicit value to the people handing over the cash" approach which turns me off location-based "games" such as Foursquare and Gowalla. And particularly zubworld, who won't of course be happy to hear that.

It's the proposition of zubworld that I find laughable. It says it has 3.7m locations. "You can buy 3.2m locations from $5. We plan to release details on resale market shortly," tweeted its PR company.

At this point I reacted rather like the garage owner in the joke where the customer comes in and says "Can I get a petrol can for my Yugo/Lada/[insert looked-down-on car brand of choice", to which the owner responds "OK, sounds like a fair exchange."

Hmm, I thought, you can buy 2.5m locations for a total of $5? That sounds OK. Then again, how many location are there? And then it dawned - wait, each location costs $5? What sort of mugs is zubworld looking for, exactly? Why would you buy a "location" in a virtual world like that? Why would you sell it? Who would buy a "used" location?

The obvious weakness in the plan is that there's nothing to stop me, or someone else with a bigger budget and better-known brand, coming along and doing exactly the same thing - at which point all those zubworld locations are going to crash in value. And rather as with the moon plots, all you'll be left with is less money and a plaque for the wall (if you printed it out).

Plus, it's been done before: ever heard of Second Life? You could buy plots and things there, and build dwellings and so on. But that actually had something approaching utility - you could connect with people there. Perhaps zubworld will do the same... but at the cost of reinventing the wheel.

Now, FourSquare and Gowalla aren't run in quite the same way - there's no charge for using them, for one thing - but the idea behind it works much the same: you go around collecting useful information for them (the location of restaurants, houses, and so on) and they "reward" you by letting you claim to be the mayor of Nonsuch. Except that if someone else comes along and checks in more frequently, they can become the mayor of Nonsuch. Oh noes! Oh, who cares.

Because the fact that there are two (now three) of these sorts of services offering to let you do things to virtual worlds indicates that they're all as worthless as each other - they're all people competing to sell you bits of the moon. (Try the Google search and notice that there are multiple companies offering to sell space on the moon. What happens if they both claim to sell the same lot? Do you get to watch while they fight for it?)

Perhaps people will say I'm not "getting" location-based services - more particularly, location-based "games". I'd disagree. Location-based services are really important, and they're potentially the source of substantial revenue-making opportunities. But only the ones that are grounded in the real world, and things you can do with that real world.

For the rest? I'd give you $5 for them.

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